The Pink Thing

In packing to head down to the Incredibly Patient Mother's house for a few days, where we had a lovely Christmas that was a full day of eating and family and catching up, I managed not to bring my camera cord.  I have the camera. I remembered to pack the battery charger. The two (yes, I finally found the other one that I knew I'd moved--promptly after buying a new one) camera-connect-to-computer-cords are both in Chicago. Now, there might be one around here, I haven't asked either of my siblings.  Actually, it's a pretty safe bet that there is, considering that my mum's digital camera is around here too somewhere.  Anywho...

In May 2007, if my own admissions on Ravelry are to be believed, I cast on the pink behemoth. I had several pounds, quite literally, of Red Heart in rose and burgundy. I grabbed a pattern from somewhere, I'm not sure where anymore. It was before I signed on to Ravelry, before I moved to Wisconsin, etc etc etc.  Why I have that much acrylic yarn in those shades is unclear, but it's now moved twice with me--possibly more. I'm not sure if it lived in New York. Someone check with the Blonde's husband (former flatmate of mine) and get back to me on that, will you?   

It's a two row stitch pattern, of which I am a big fan as it's painfully simple to memorize and pretty easy to read when I pick it up every 6-12 months.

Row 1:
K2P2 *K2 YO K2 (double decrease) K2 YO K2 P2* (to the last two stitches) K2
Row 2:
K2 Purl across K2

Multiples of 13 plus 6, according to my occasionally questionable math.

Now then--you'll notice above that I say (double decrease). That's because when I dug it out of the stuffed hedgehog*, I'd forgotten which double decrease I was supposed to be doing. I think it's a k3tog and yes I could have ripped back or gone down a row or two to figure it out or called upon the Cartoonist or a Knitting Store Owner and begged for wiser reading than my own.  But that's not a particularly well centered decrease, I thought, and so--in 15 minutes while I was supposed to be packing to leave for the IPMs house and was instead fussing with an afghan I hadn't knit on in well over a year at least, I changed to a slip 1, k2tog, psso decrease instead.  Yes, you can see the difference; No, it doesn't seem to have a huge effect on the pattern. I figure once it's done and been through the wash once or twice, it won't really matter.

 

I have at least a half dozen skeins of burgundy left and about 2 lbs of the rose. It's about 4'-4.5' wide. I'm less than 3' in so far but as I said, there's a lot of yarn to go on this. It's older Red Heart and not quite as strangely plastic as the stuff one sees at Walmart these days. It's not merino or any of my other squishy natural fibers but it's an excellent on the go project and I do like the idea of an afghan that can be tossed into the washer and dryer without guilt.

Growing up, there was a long denim blue afghan in my mother's house. It was a little too narrow  but it was endlessly long to a seven year old and one just mummified oneself with a book and called it snug. I have a feeling this afghan is going to be like that. My goal is to try and knit at least the equivalent of 1 skein per week until I wear this stash out. 100 grams or thereabouts? Perhaps this way by next Christmas I could be done with it and have one less afghan. It's going to have to be "thereabouts" because a) I don't own a scale and b) I'm working with skeins that are a full pound of wool. I can't knit a pound in a week for this and still do things like eat, sleep and work.  As those are required (well-not sleep) for staying alive and paying the bills..... Over Christmas and before New Years I'm getting a head start.



The pictures are from when I put it into Ravelry. It's a few rows longer now. Also, during that 15 minutes of re-interpretation of the pattern and altering of the double decrease, I moved it over to circular needles--which makes me slightly less inclined to needle Sibling-the-Younger in the car.

Completed sock pictures soon--I've finished two pair this week!

*Stuffed Hedgehog:  Sibling-the-Elder found a huge floor pillow in the shape of a hedgehog at IKEA. It came with a giant air pouch, which I promptly got rid of an filled it with afghans for the summer. It was starting to get cold again before I moved and the afghans were in use so I stuffed 3 afghans in process and a few other knitting projects in various states of completion inside, zipped it shut, and handed the hedgehog over to the moving guys. They didn't even ask.